AN EASTER MESSAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1922, Page 4

AN EASTER MESSAGE.

GOOD FRIDAY. RENOWN THROUGH SELF-RENUN-CIATION. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) The origin of Good Friday is wrapped in obscurity. It may be that the celebration imperceptibly grew up out of the yearly observance of the “Passover,” and “the days of unleavened bread.” There is no record of the observance in the New Testament, or the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The sanctity of special seasons was an idea that was foreign in the minds of the early Christians. “The whole of time is a festival unto .Christians because of the good things which have been given,” writes Saint Chrysostom. But the central message of this Church Festival is clear and sure. More, over, its chief and abiding significance does not lie in the realm of theological controversy, where “graceless zealots fight,” but in the sphere of social service and human redemption. It is a Spirit and an Ethic. As Professor Goodwin Smith truly says: “The Atonemeirt is a life principle to be realised, not a formula to be assented to.”

We glory in the Cross. It burns in stained glass glory jn the chancel windows of the cool, dark church. It flames like a banner from a thousand Gothic spires. It trembles in light in jewelled ornaments on the neck of the bride. It is carved in marble above the graves of Christians. Red Cross nurses wear it on their arm in slum and battlefields. We wed its praises to our noblest songs and set them singing round the world. It is at once the symbol of Divinest compassion and the prophesy and pledge of world-wide conquest, for vicarious suffering is not an arbitrary contrivance by whieh the Divine Sufferer bought a formal pardon for the world. It is a universal law of life and progress. It is the price someone must pay for every step forward, and every victory over evil. Redemption is not an afterthought: it is part of an eternal purpose. As a fact in the history of the race, the Crucifixion took place two thousand years ago, but the Cross is timeless. Love is eternal, and all love is sacrificial. Calvary was an event, but redemption through sacrifice is part of the moral order of the world. The whole creation is bedewed with blood, and so is the history of man.

CREATION DEFINED. What is creation itself, saVe love going forth in love’s sacrifice? Every life that breathes on the planet, every flower that blooms, every star that shines, and every river that seeks the sea, spends itself in giving, and none of these things appear to have been made for themselves alone. All material things live and die for the good of others. The mineral is the solid basis, on which is spread the vegetable, the vegetable feeds the animal, the lower animal supports the higher. Trees do not grow for themselves alone, they nourish and shelter the birds, they shade the traveller till he blesses them.

Of all the thousands of plants that botany has classified and catalogued, there is not one but takes its place in the ministry of service by sacrifice. The air we breathe depends on the salt and surging sea. The soil draws its 'fertility from the gracious and tirptely showers. The wine costs the cluster; the linen costs the flax. Those coral islands, where the fronded palm trees toss and wave, and where man builds his home amid tropical profusion, are reared above the wash of the waves by myriads of living things that died vicariously, in order that man might live. All living and growing things are fed and buttressed by the granite rocks that sleep in sunless eaves, and, “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.”

Man’s life is rooted in this law. The mother’s anguish is the condition of her child’s life. New Zealand would never have been cleared for civilisation, its swamps drained, its forests felled, its roads graded, its cities built, its schools and universities founded, had not the first settlers paid the price in toils and tears, in suffering and death. Never was victory won for freedom; but the victor took possession of bis conquest over , the slain bodies of nameless heroes, who died that he might win. The author buys his poem and his song with the burnt up tissue of his brain. “Paradise Regained” cost John Milton his eyesight.

FREEDOM WON.

A few years ago liberty of thought ‘and speech were things unknown. Men’s minds were imprisoned and their lips padlocked. To openly criticise a Baron meant the confiscation of the peasant s land. To criticise the King meant death for disloyalty. To-day we are free to think our own thoughts, and speak our own words, to sift all knowledge, to cast away the chaff and garner the grain; but to win this freedom •blood has flowed like rivers, and tears have been too cheap to count. Thus by the very constitution of the universe and the order of human society, we are compelled to recognise the eternal law of sacrifice, whereof the Cross is the highest and Divinest example. That law is written of the 'moral nature of man. We are so fashioned that we cannot approve deeds done from selfish motives, and ■for selfish ends, and we cannot withhold commendation of actions prompted by unselfish surrender to another’s advantage. The English soldier, flinging ■kisses to the shadow of Florence NightI ingale as she flitted to and fro in the I canvas hospitals of the Crimea, witnessed this very thing.

I Conscience commends the world’s benefactors, and conscience condemns the exploiters of their fellows, for con-i-uience is “the bright candle of the i ..rd.” History makes haste to forget the man who only remembers himself. No mercenary forehead wears a wreath of immortality. The temple of lame is guarded with flaming sword against avarice and greed. Renunciation is the path of renown. When Mazzini first made his appeal to his fellows, ne was •met by contempt and scorn by the men he hungered to serve. But Mazzini had learned how to suffer and be strong. Therefore, did he stand like an iron pillar, strong and steadfast as a wall of brass; and to-day he abides in the light of immortality.

This law of sacrifice is the secret of Messiah, and because he yielded up Himself for the world according- to the will of the Highest, multitudes will gather to wonder and to worship, then go forth to meet their Cavalry under U;he inspiration, of His Peerless example.